It has become imperative to reduce food loss in India for improved food security and nutrition of our increasing population, environment health, and enhancing income of the food producers and other actors in the supply-chain. The studies conducted by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) state that the Indian agriculture sector incurs 18 to 25 percent losses in the entire supply-chain which are lower than those reported globally by FAO (DFI, Vol III). Other recent studies have estimated a loss of upto 40 percent in certain perishable commodities. Overall, the estimates available on quantity and quality of food loss in India remain highly inconsistent. Nevertheless any amount of loss is a wasted opportunity for several reasons including our capacity to fight hunger and feed severely malnourished population of India, especially women and child; to add to the income of farmers; mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gases that are not only emitted from food that is lost but also during its production cycle; and to improve the efficiency of land and water resources.

Globally a movement is emerging to reduce the loss of food. In 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted, including Target 12.3, which calls for halving the food loss and waste by 2030. This session will discuss the synergy needed to catalyse this movement in India to achieve the SDG target. The session will bring together the representatives of the food producers, researchers, private sector, Government and non-government organisation (NGOs) to deliberate on the challenges and opportunities for reducing loss in India.